R is for Recipes

In the words of high school musical "What time is it? Summertime! School's Out - Scream and Shout!" Sadly, summertime is now over and what time is it? Time for Lauren to finally, grow up, get a job, and live on her own. I'm currently living in boring old Oklahoma with my parents as I decide on what I am doing with my life. Oklahoma wouldn't be so bad... if I had even just one friend within half a decade of my age. My only friend here, Jessie Babcock, is 15. Her mom is, well, let's just say if Jessie is 15 her mom is atleast half a decade older than me. Anyways, enough of my whining, I need to move already. Point of the blog post is that soon I will be living on my own. I will have no mother to cook my meals, no roommate who is an expert chef (Thank you Rachel Zackrison), and no sister to trade off cooking with (Love you Meredith). I need to learn how to cook real meals.

This is a real request for favorite recipes, don't send me a ton because if you do I will probably disregard them, but if everyone reading will send me a few of their favorites, it would be much appreciated. Send to laurennuttall@gmail.com, or post them as a comment so others can see them. Thank you in advance.

Here is one of my favorite recipes given to me by Rachel.



Title: Chicken Enchilladas - Rachel's Recipe

Description:This is the recipe I've made at beach week the past couple years. Enjoy!


Ingredients:1/4 cup chopped pecans1/4 cup chopped onions2 T. margerine1 4oz can of diced green chili peppers, drained3 oz. cream cheese, softened1 T. milk1/4 t. groud cumin2 cups chopped cooked chicken 12 7-inch flour tortillas1 10 3/4 oz can condensed cream of chicken or cream of mushroom soup1 8oz carton sour cream1 cup milk3/4 cup shredded Monterey Jack or cheddar cheese2 T. chopped pecans


Directions:1. In a skillet, cook pecans and onion in margerine over medium heat til onion is tender and pecans are lightly toasted. Remove from heat, stir in 1 T. of the green chilies.

2. In a medium bowl, combine cream cheese, 1 T. milk, cumin. Add nut mixture and chicken. Spoon onto tortillas, roll up, place seam side down in a greased 3 qt rectangular baking dish. (**I usually put a little bit of the sour cream/cream of chicken mixture in the bottom of the baking dish to keep it from sticking)

3. In a medium bowl combine soup, sour cream, 1 cup milk, and remaining canned chilies. Pour the soup mixture evenly over the tortillas in baking dish. Cover with foil and bake at 350 for about 35 minutes. Remove foil, sprinkle with cheese and extra pecans. Return to oven and bake for 5 more minutes.

************ I find that the filling mixture isn't quite enough. I usually double the "chicken mixture" (cream cheese, pecans and onions, chilies, chicken) to make heartier enchilladas. I also put some cheese inside before I roll them up. Enjoy!

Number Of Servings:6 servings

B is for Break Dancing

Ok so my little sister is adorable and here is a video of her breakdancing. She LOVES to practice her breakdancing! Sorry for the messy room, I'm currently moving into the upstairs of my parents house.

P is for Pictures (and Parties)

I've been home for exactly two weeks and one day and everyday has seemed like a party. The Christie boys, our second family, came two weeks ago from tomorrow and we have been hanging out, swimming, going to the lake, and going to frontier city, the amusement park. We've taken tons of pictures and videos of tubing, boating, rollar coasters, and jumps off the diving board. Not too much to write about and most of the pictures are on the other computer.

Alli and I at the airport with the welcome home sign she made me.

(Notice the backpack--I really did backpack Europe!)

AD and Kevin after a spaghetti dinner.

I love my brother, this shirt is perfect for him!

AD and I at the arcade making tons of dough, well, tickets.

We are so fierce! Yes, we earned 1700 tickets on the Elvis coin machine. That's what I like to call skill.

No worries, I didn't pass up the photo booth! I was slightly confused on where to look and when to pose...

This is me on the boat. Boating makes me happy!

That's all for now. Hopefully I'll have another blog soon. Let me know what yall think of the new design.

Love Lauren

C is for Construction

My blog is now officially under construction. Please let me know if you would like to do my blog design for me or know of places where I can get cute designs. I like the corner on this, but the hot pink and blue are too much.

D is for Dancing

So today I was obsessed with watching dances from SYTYCD and this was by FAR my favorite. It's amazing. Hip hop to Bleeding Heart, and it works! I probably watched it twenty times. Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5mUv3_2Qig

A is for America

That's right. I'm back in America. Home of the free, land of the brave. It's good to be back where everyone speaks English, or at least tries to! I'm excited to be home, but sad my adventures have come to an end. Not to mention I will not longer see my dear friend Heidi who I have spent pretty much every waking morning with since April 30th till July 5th. I realized when I got back how bad I was at keeping in touch via email and updating the blog, as well as journaling. So, I'm either going to be making changes on the blog, or making a scrapbook, which everyone will be welcome to see! If anyone wants a preview of what I did, you can look at Rachel's blog. We weren't there at the same time, but she is there now and keeps it very updated and I have done pretty much all the same things!

Anyways, it is great to be home. I was separated from my Europe partners, Heidi and Spencer in Washington D.C. when they stopped there and I was going on to OKC, and I realized during my 4 1/2 hour layover, that it was the first time I have been by myself doing my own thing since before I left for Jerusalem. What did I do to past the time? Well, the first hour was spent getting through customs and dealing with a crying baby. At this point I wanted to slap a little kid in the face and be like SHUT UP ALREADY! I know, this doesn't sound very kind, but this is after I was on a flight for nine hours when half the time some people in the front, I never even saw them, let their baby scream and scream and scream. There was a point where they let it scream for about an hour or two straight. No exaggeration, ask Heidi and Spence. No one picked it up, or tried to help it or anything. I think they were French.

Anyways, after customs I proceeded to the terminal where my flight was. I left my cellular in Provo, so I called my mother from a pay phone. I used a phone card for the first time in my life. The phone card was a gift given to me by my neighbors for my high school graduation. Being a college grad, I decided to cheat the system by calling her and giving her the pay phone number to call me back. So she did, and I felt like a drug dealer answering a ringing pay phone. We then talked for over 90 minutes. The other two hours were spent wandering the halls wondering what I should do with myself. I think I walked the terminal 15 times. Finally, I was able to get on the plane, I pulled my pillow and blanky out of my bag, got my sudoku and ipod and patiently waited on the 3 hour flight back home.

While on the phone with my mother, I told her if anyone loved me they would be at the airport, with signs, when I got home. This was my welcome crew.

Yes that sign says, welcome home Lauren when are you going to get a job? And yes, that is toilet paper AD is holding. She always has had potty humor.

Yes I look nasty, but keep in mind that I just backpacked Europe for the past 17 days and I had been traveling for around 22 hours (that includes traveling to airports, waiting time, and flights).

I'm home safely and just chillin in OKC. My four little boys are coming today so our house will be a party for the next two weeks! If anyone wants to visit me, arrangements can be made. :)

Love Lauren

U is for Update

Sorry guys, long time no update.

I love Jerusalem! It's been amazing here! I've been able to do so much. Here is a brief update of what has been going on. We went to Galilee for ten days and it was absolutely wonderful! We went all over the place in the Galilee and swam in the sea of Galilee. Brief places that I remember going are Caesarea, Mt. Tabor, Nimrod's Castle, seeing a 2000 year old boat, Mount of Beatitudes, and the Galilee Branch of church. We have been to soo many places, those are just the ones I can remember off the top of my head.

The other day we had a really exciting field trip, we went to Masada, walked around there and saw one of Herod's castles. It was pretty cool. We then went and floated in the Dead Sea and found mud and put it all over ourselves, not going to lie, it wasn't that fun and with open cuts the it breached being painful, but it was all worth it for the crazy pictures we took. We then went to Ein Gedi, the spot where David hid from Saul. There were amazing waterfalls there -- so pretty! After that we went to Qumran, where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found. It was then we found out how much of a baller our professor is--he is a master of Israeli things and Hebrew and helped to translate one of the scrolls. Amazing. Anyways.

Here are pics. Enjoy!

Love Lauren

heidi, me, and allie at masada

floating in the Dead Sea

ethiopian women, we let our hair down, literally

ashley, me, dr. seeley, and heidi and qumran

random pic, me and allie overlooking the dome of the rock, mount scopus and the mount of olives, if you look to the top left, the "mormon university" is cascading down the top

and no worries folks, they have diet coke in israel, boo yah